Pippa Heylings
MP for South Cambridgeshire · Liberal Democrat · United Kingdom
“Residents, local leaders and businesses in South Cambridgeshire have been left in limbo by the last-minute announcement that the Government cannot yet determine the optimal option for Cambridgeshire’s local government reorganisation.”
“Preparing for increasing climate impacts must be seen as an issue of national security and resilience. The Liberal Democrats are calling for adequate cooling to be installed in all NHS hospitals, care homes and schools in high-risk areas in the next five years, and for work with local authorities and mayors to create a network of air-cond…”
“Those are just statistics, but like others I have heard stories of children struggling to learn in overheated classrooms, older people becoming dangerously ill in care homes, critical incidents in our hospitals, farmers facing drought and water shortages, and communities and wildlife under threat from wildfires, yet despite these growing…”
“It is an honour to serve under your chairship, Sir Christopher. I congratulate the hon. Member for Waveney Valley (Adrian Ramsay) on securing this timely debate. As Britain experiences yet another summer of extreme heat, we cannot ignore the fact that the UK was built for a climate that no longer exists, as we have heard from all hon.”
“Just before the debate, we hosted a solar-powered ice cream van from the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Tiverton and Minehead (Rachel Gilmour) in Speaker’s Court . Given the heat, it was very nourishing, and it was lovely that the Doorkeepers and those who work with Mr Speaker were able to come out and have some.”
“That is the message of the multiple people’s emergency briefings that the South Cambridgeshire climate and nature group arranged across my constituency and which I have attended, and which have happened across the country. Does the Minister support the call for a Government-backed, televised national emergency briefing?”
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“Yet we know, and we have heard today, that many small businesses do not have the capacity to undertake the work necessary to find the best energy deal and are vulnerable to exploitation, increasing, rather than decreasing, overall costs. That is where regulation of the energy market for small businesses is so important. This debate is timely, but this is not a new issue. A 2023 report by Octopus revealed a disturbing picture of the impact on small businesses of a lack of regulation, unscrupulous practices and unfairness in the energy market. Some 3.2 million had had a negative experience with energy brokers and 78% of small businesses demanded that broker commissions be made clearer.”
“When the energy bill relief scheme was replaced, support was slashed by 85%, and then it was removed altogether by March 2024. Liberal Democrat analysis estimates that 3.1 million SMEs saw bills rise by £7.6 billion. Today, the average small business electricity bill stands at £240 a month and 92% of SMEs plan to raise their prices due to energy volatility. That is unsustainable. Domestic customers are protected to some extent by the energy price cap, and larger energy-intensive firms benefit from the brand-new British industrial competitiveness scheme. Is the Minister considering bringing in caps on energy costs for small businesses? In the meantime, owners of SMEs are encouraged to do it alone—independently explore the market and switch to a better deal.”
“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Dowd. I join other Members in congratulating the hon. Member for Tamworth (Sarah Edwards) on securing the debate and on her fantastic laying out of the situation. Small businesses are the backbone of our economy: they are 99% of UK businesses and over 5.5 million strong. My constituency has one of the highest concentrations of SMEs in the country. They really matter. They are essential to our communities and our growth. Almost 45% of nearly 1,300 businesses surveyed by the Federation of Small Businesses at the end of 2024 reported increased costs due to a rise in utility costs. Our small businesses are really struggling and they are being failed by an energy system that lacks due fairness, transparency and accountability. SMEs have been left behind.”
“We have heard from the Minister about the state of the refining industry and how the industry had not met the Government for 13 years. Such situations make it yet clearer that the Government must set out a comprehensive and strategic plan for workers in the oil and gas industry to support the redeployment of skills and training as part of a just transition. A recent report by Robert Gordon University warned that the UK risks losing tens of thousands of offshore energy jobs by 2030 unless urgent and co-ordinated action is taken immediately. Rather than the irresponsible and reckless race backwards to volatile fossil fuel dependency that the Conservatives have put forward today, the report calls for honest dialogue to settle on a common UK policy framework—”
“There are questions to be asked of the company bosses in both State Oil and the Prax Group, and it is good to hear the Secretary of State’s announcement of an investigation into how the company bosses have let workers down. We welcome the Minister’s words that the company should bear some responsibility and accountability for jobs and skills for those workers, if it turns out that the company closes. We welcome the Government’s proposals to consider adding refineries to the network charging compensation scheme for energy-intensive industries. Once again, as we have heard, we see UK industry buckling under soaring energy costs—some of the highest in Europe—with workers left to pay the price. Many in this House will feel a troubling sense of déjà vu following the Grangemouth job losses.”
“I, too, thank the Minister for advance notice of the statement today. Our thoughts are with the workers at the Prax Lindsey refinery who have heard this last-minute, shocking news today, which has put their futures and jobs on hold. We understand that this is just one refinery within the Prax Group, but the threatened closure will send shockwaves across its wider operations, with its newly acquired oilfields to the west of Shetland and roughly 200 petrol stations in the UK under the Breeze and Harvest Energy brands. While those facilities are outside the insolvency process as things stand, workers in those upstream businesses and the wider community will understandably be worried about the impact of the insolvency on their jobs.”
“Let us therefore champion governance built on transparency for any kind of research and standards in geo-engineering and climate action, which is ambitious and grounded in our transition to home-grown clean, green energy.”
“It must never be used as an excuse to delay decarbonisation through embracing and investing in renewables. We must remember that the first stop in our fight against climate change and securing energy security is investment in the transition to renewable and clean energy. Any amount of greenhouse gas removal will ultimately compromise the fight against climate change. As Dr Vaughan from the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change said: “SRM methods do not address the causes of climate change”. However, a blanket ban on geo-engineering, as the motion proposes, would be short-sighted and self-defeating as we explore the other methods that I have discussed.”
“That position was made clear by the Minister in January, who said that the ongoing SRM research is for modelling only. The Government’s views on SRM are in accordance with those of the Liberal Democrats; we think it should not go to full deployment. We also think that the money invested in SRM research could have been better allocated to other measures for dealing with nature-based removal. I agree with Professor Mike Hulme that the cost of the research is an extraordinary amount of taxpayer money to invest in speculative technology. He is right to say, as I have already said, that the money could be better spent on reducing our dependence on fossil fuels or removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Geo-engineering is not a silver bullet.”
“Quite rightly, the Government funded an independent review of greenhouse gas removal approaches, led by former MP Dr Alan Whitehead, covering nature-based solutions and engineered removals, such as direct air capture. We saw in the Government’s response to the e-petition that they are currently working with the British Standards Institution to develop greenhouse gas removal methodologies, some of which may use sustainable biomass and require coming up with biomass sustainability criteria. There are some ways in which we could see greenhouse gas removal as a kind of guardrail for helping to decarbonise the atmosphere. The e-petition also makes reference to solar radiation modification, which is an area that causes more concern. The Government have announced that they are not in favour of using SRM and have no plans for its full deployment.”
“Among other things, it has been looking at something that brings climate and nature approaches together into balance again, such as marine biomass regeneration, which aims to restore whale populations, and ocean biomass to boost nutrient recycling and phytoplankton growth, because healthier oceans can naturally absorb more carbon dioxide and support global climate goals. The centre has also been looking at the role of giant kelp, which grows rapidly and captures large amounts of carbon dioxide. When it sinks to the ocean floor, it stores carbon for the long term, offering a powerful, nature-based carbon removal method. Those are just two of the types of approaches that are being investigated.”
“We have seen sizeable investments from the Government into carbon capture storage. That could accommodate large-scale BECCS and DACCS, which clearly will be dependent on carbon capture and storage, but that is a measure of last resort for those hard-to-decarbonise sectors. Living in South Cambridgeshire, I am close to the border with Cambridge. Since 2019, under climate expert Professor Sir David King, the University of Cambridge has been undertaking some important research into greenhouse gases at the Centre for Climate Repair.”
“The balanced pathway, developed in the Climate Change Committee’s seventh carbon budget, tries to reduce emissions across all sectors of the economy as far as credibly possible, in line with cost effectiveness and feasibility constraints, minimising the use of engineered removals. However, even the committee recognises that we need to go beyond cutting emissions and to start work on the engineered removal of greenhouse gases from the atmosphere. That is why removals are part of the Government’s net zero strategy. As we have heard, geo-engineering refers to deliberate, large-scale projects to reduce carbon and cool the Earth’s climate system to address climate change. In greenhouse gas removal terms, that also includes direct air carbon capture and storage and bioenergy with carbon capture and storage, some of which we are already using.”
“The Climate Change Committee was clear last year that only a third of the emissions reductions required to achieve the country’s climate targets are currently covered by credible plans. Although it is true that our emissions are now less than half the levels they were in 1990, largely due to the phase-out of coal and the ramping up of renewables, we will now need ambitious action not just in the energy sector but across transport, buildings, industry and agriculture. The plans left by the previous Government did not deliver enough action, so we must do more. Nevertheless, even with aggressive investment in renewables and actions to decarbonise key sectors, we will still have to deal with residual emissions from heavy industries, particularly aviation, shipping and steel.”
“Over just one weekend, we have seen our vulnerability to extreme weather conditions as a result of our failure to tackle climate change, and our vulnerability as a result of our dependence on global fossil fuels supply and prices. That underlines, once again, our need to strengthen our home-grown energy security and reduce our polluting emissions by accelerating investment in renewables and clean, green energy. Our emissions are not falling fast enough, and we are not on track to meet our legally binding climate targets. The world is set to surpass 1.5° of warming in the next decade. That is the context in which the petition was brought forward. We need to address the root causes of climate breakdown, as my hon. Friend the Member for South Cotswolds (Dr Savage) said.”
“As well as record-breaking temperatures, the weekend brought an increase in the threat of greater destabilisation in the middle east, with escalating conflict between Israel and the US and Iran. Unsurprisingly, on Sunday night oil prices soared to their highest since President Trump’s return to office, as the energy markets digested the news of the attacks on nuclear facilities in Iran. We do not yet know whether the situation in the middle east will lead to an oil supply shock. The Iranian Parliament has threatened to close the strait of Hormuz, which would choke the flow of oil from the region. Ordinary people will once again face volatile prices, hitting their pockets, as energy becomes more expensive and the cost of living is exacerbated.”
“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Furniss. It is important to set the debate and the e-petition in the context of the last couple of weeks. Last weekend saw another hottest day of the year on record, triggering an official heatwave and accompanied by an amber heat health warning, which means that because of high temperatures significant impacts are likely across health and social care services, including a rise in deaths, particularly among those aged 65 and over and people with health conditions. The Met Office puts the chance of us seeing another 40° weather event at 50:50, with a 45° day on the cards in the current climate. That is like an average summer day in Death Valley. I cannot imagine how the people and the natural environment in my constituency or the rest of the UK could cope with that.”
“We have to recognise that we need a 10-year emergency insulation programme, with free upgrades for low-income households and those for whom such decarbonisation of heating is not a possibility, which is what the Liberal Democrats have called for. All new homes must be built to the future homes standard, as zero carbon-ready from day one. We need investment in heat pumps and alternatives, with full cost coverage for the most vulnerable, and investment in low-carbon, green and wild hydrogen to provide greater flexibility in the grid. Once again, I thank the hon. Member for Cannock Chase for bringing forward this debate.”
“We welcome the Government’s recent announcement of investment in hydrogen, but we would like to see that investment being part of a comprehensive plan to support low-carbon technology across the board. We felt that such a plan was absent from the Chancellor’s most recent spending review, so, as we have already heard today, it would be good to get clarity about the role of hydrogen and the level of investment in it. Like other Members, I have recently had a heat pump installed, and we are now completely off gas—off the grid—with an induction hob. As many have said, it is not easy, and it can be costly up front.”
“That means a national retraining programme to help workers to enter the green economy, incentives for oil and gas firms to pivot towards clean technologies, ending the red tape that frustrates climate tech start-ups, many of which are in my constituency of South Cambridgeshire, and finally—as many Members have already said—investment in hydrogen innovation, where the UK can lead with world-class research in its industrial base. We have heard today about hydrogen blending, which could make hydrogen 20% of the natural gas supply, helping to reduce the carbon intensity of gas and meeting the gas demand in the medium term while we adapt our infrastructure. We are also looking at having a resilient and flexible energy system that could be supported by green hydrogen, with storage and flexible power.”
“These fuels have already been trialled in rural communities, and the Governments in Scotland, Northern Ireland and Ireland have embraced them as part of their decarbonisation strategies. We now need a comprehensive UK-wide plan and I hope the Minister will confirm that the forthcoming warm homes plan and future homes standard will also acknowledge and address the specific needs of rural off-grid consumers. However, although we are hearing about the challenges and barriers, within this transition lies opportunity. That is why the Liberal Democrats are calling for a just transition plan to protect jobs, retain skills and support communities whose economies are still built around oil and gas.”
“The situation in South Cambridgeshire is similar to the situation in Hexham, with one in five communities living off-grid and relying on heating oil. They are among 4 million people and 250,000 businesses in this situation across the UK, which are often served by small, rural, family-owned firms. In addition, off-grid homes are some of the most difficult and expensive to decarbonise because of their age, rural location and construction methods. The National Grid’s “Future Energy Scenarios” report estimates that 1 million UK homes will require alternatives to electrified heating because of the high cost of local grid upgrades. Renewable liquid fuels such as hydrotreated vegetable oil offer a drop-in replacement for heating oil.”
“Today, we have asked whether that mandates how we get to that low-carbon heating with dominant technologies, or whether it should be left to the market to come up with innovations. I will be interested to hear from people with much more expertise than me on that. However, given the time that has already been lost, we must move forward. Let me pick up on the comments from the hon. Member for Hexham (Joe Morris) about rural communities. While we are considering the cost of decarbonising heating through solar panels, heat pumps and induction hobs, we also have to consider the many people in rural communities who live off-grid. These households also need certainty and direction from the Government about how they can decarbonise their heating.”
“Under the Conservatives, we ditched the zero-carbon homes policy and since then we have been building homes without proper energy efficiency and without the connections through solar panels to the grid that we should have had. We are also still waiting for the future homes standard and other standards to be brought forward. Those actions were short-sighted, which is why it is fantastic that we have seen the Government take on board the private Member’s Bill promoted my hon. Friend the Member for Cheltenham (Max Wilkinson). It is “the sunshine Bill”, mandating that there will be solar panels on every roof. That Bill will come forward with the future homes standard, which is fantastic. In addition, the future homes standard is committing to low-carbon heating.”
“With over 85% of UK homes still connected to the gas grid, we face having to overhaul our national infrastructure. Our gas pipeline network spans more than 284,000 km, or nearly seven times around the Earth, so simply abandoning the infrastructure is not an option. We are talking about a massive repurposing challenge. As we have already heard today, that repurposing also needs to cover green hydrogen, low-carbon hydrogen, biomethane, district heating and many other options. Additionally, policy needs to look at demand, including for new homes and house building. The Climate Change Committee has been clear that no new homes should be connected to the gas grid after 2026, yet we have had dither and delay since 2016.”
“That is the lived reality of our dependence on the gas grid, tied to volatile international markets. We must remember that in 2022 prices peaked at more than 20 times the 2020 average. It is clear that ending our overreliance on gas must be a national priority if we are to strengthen energy security, unlock low-carbon alternatives and bring prices down. We need resilience and flexibility in the grid, which is currently provided by gas. The Climate Change Committee and the National Grid have confirmed that, to meet our net zero targets, the UK’s natural gas use must fall by a staggering 90% by 2050, accounting for just 6% of our energy mix—and even then, only if emissions are captured through carbon capture and storage. There is no escaping the scale of the challenge.”
“The Climate Change Committee, in its seventh carbon budget, made clear that if we transition away from gas, and there were to be another spike in gas prices due to an incident like the invasion of Ukraine, then by 2040 the average household would be 15 times less sensitive to those price shocks and skyrocketing energy costs. Not proceeding with the transition does not just undermine our national security; it hits people in their wallets. That damages our businesses and economic growth. Energy has never been so costly, and that matters particularly in a cost of living crisis. Today, 11% of households in England live in fuel poverty, including nearly 9% in my constituency of South Cambridgeshire. That means many people have to choose between eating and heating their homes every winter.”
“Gas remains the largest source of energy in the UK, accounting for more than half of our carbon emissions and providing 39% of the energy used across electricity, heating and industry. Although it is strategically important to our economy and to people’s lives, that dependency is also a strategic vulnerability. Around half of the UK’s gas is imported, and that reliance is our Achilles’ heel. In times of geopolitical instability, we are dangerously exposed. The illegal invasion of Ukraine by Putin and the resulting spike in global energy prices highlighted just how risky it is to depend on imported gas.”
“The Liberal Democrats fully support a transition away from fossil fuels towards clean, home-grown renewable energy to deal with the energy trilemma that needs to be balanced in energy policy: cutting polluting emissions, protecting people, households and businesses from future price shocks, and strengthening our energy and national security through reliable home-grown clean energy supplies. The future of our gas grid is a real challenge. It must be defined by clarity, urgency and care, addressing the challenges we have heard today with affordability, the promotion of alternatives—whether dominant or not—their costs, and the resilience and flexibility of our grid. We have heard about the importance of securing multi-vector energy systems throughout this transition, and that is key.”
“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Dame Siobhain. I am pleased to speak in this important and timely debate on the future of the gas grid. I thank the hon. Member for Cannock Chase (Josh Newbury) for securing this increasingly urgent debate and for his expertise on the matter, and I wish him many happy returns. Gas has long been the backbone of how we heat our homes and power our economy. However, times are changing, and so must our approach to energy.”
“Warm wishes for your birthday, Mr Speaker—and I am going to talk about warmth, as you might expect. Over the last decade, we have seen so many households living in Dickensian conditions, with dark, damp and cold homes, and having to choose between heating and eating. With the warm homes plan widely recognised as the most cost-effective way of making homes warmer, healthier and cheaper to heat, can the Secretary of State confirm exactly how many homes will be covered? Is the current scale of the plan truly sufficient to meet the challenge we face?”
“The North sea’s future lies in clean energy, but despite the UK’s billing as a wind superpower, we still import most of our wind turbine components while communities around the North sea are losing jobs. Trade unions and industry are united in calling for £1.1 billion a year to build up domestic renewables manufacturing, but the Chancellor has committed barely half that. Will the Secretary of State work with his Cabinet colleagues to secure the investment that is needed to realise the job-creating potential of the green just transition?”
“We welcome the Government’s renewed focus on energy security through nuclear power as part of the energy mix. It is long overdue, after years of dither and delay from successive Conservative Governments. It has been 16 years since Sizewell C was first announced in 2009, and now, seven Prime Ministers later, we are finally seeing real movement. That is not a success story but a warning. Short-term thinking, poor delivery and exorbitant costs—”
“The Government must be transparent about how this will be paid for, because families cannot afford another hit to their household budgets. The Liberal Democrats believe that the best way to cut bills, create good jobs and boost energy security is to invest in home-grown renewables such as solar, wind, tidal and geothermal, and to upgrade our national grid to deliver that clean power. We look forward to seeing more detail on the long-overdue reform of the outdated first come, first served grid connection system, which is holding back renewable energy projects and could even delay the roll-out of new SMRs. Today’s announcement is a step in the right direction, but the real test is in the delivery of cheaper bills, stronger energy security and a modern energy grid fit for the future.”
“I cannot help but wonder whether the Secretary of State imagined when he stood at his Dispatch Box back in 2009 that he would be back in 2025 still announcing funding for the same project. We support investment in clean, home-grown energy. Small modular nuclear reactors have real potential to reduce our dependence on foreign gas—from tyrants like Putin—and help bring down bills, so we welcome the Government’s backing of the nascent technology of small modular reactors and their choice of Rolls-Royce, which is recognised as a first mover across all of Europe. That is where the focus should be—not on large-scale projects like Sizewell C that cost billions, take decades and so often go over budget. We have to ensure that this does not land consumers with higher energy bills. That risk is very real.”
“Over 30 leading environmental organisations, including the RSPB, the wildlife trusts and the National Trust, have raised the alarm about part 3 of the Bill, with its very worrying plan to move to a “cash to trash” model for the nature restoration fund. I know the Minister has rejected that characterisation, but in the Environmental Audit Committee we heard robust evidence from expert witnesses that we could call it a “pay some amount later for something, somewhere” fund.”
“When done well, nature is a partner to the healthy homes and green energy that our country needs. However, through this Bill, the Government risk taking a wrecking ball to good-quality development. Nature is not a blocker to development. We are pointing the figure at the wrong culprit, and this is cheap, false rhetoric. Nature is not to blame. The Government’s own watchdog, the Office for Environmental Protection, has publicly warned that the Bill in its current form will be a regression from current environmental protections, rather than increasing the number of homes, helping nature and helping us to meet our binding climate and nature pledges. Instead it will remove vital safeguards and put protected sites and species at risk.”
“I declare my interest as co-chair of the all-party group on local nature recovery. When the Government first introduced this Bill, they branded it a win-win. They said that we could build the homes and infrastructure that this country desperately needs and protect and restore nature. We have seen in my constituency—one of the fastest growing areas of the country, with a Liberal Democrat-run local planning authority—that it is indeed possible to demand from developers both ambitious house building and high environmental standards that restore nature. We Liberal Democrats believe that a healthy childhood for all children includes homes that are energy-efficient and warm, not cold and damp; access to green space for mental and physical health; and infrastructure, including public transport, GPs and schools.”
“I support new clause 21, which requires local plans to have due consideration to the local nature recovery strategies, which are currently silent in the planning system. Amendments 16 and 70 would give protections to England’s globally rare chalk streams—our rainforest and our groundwater. We have 85% of the world’s chalk streams, many of them in Lib Dem constituencies, including mine, yet they remain unprotected. I hope the Government will consider amendments to the Bill, because we face a choice: pass this nature-wrecking Bill as it stands, or fix it by adopting amendments to protect chalk streams, restore wildlife and create a planning system that works with nature, not against it. I know what the Liberal Democrats will be voting for.”
“The others were missing in action—a staggering 83% of hedgehog highways, 100% of bug boxes and 75% of both bat and bird boxes. We need more. That is why I am speaking to the targeted amendments my hon. Friend has mentioned, to make sure we can have this win-win. His ew clause 1 would reinstate the mitigation hierarchy as a legal duty. Simply put, the duty is: first, avoid harm; then mitigate if that is not possible; and only compensate and offset as a last resort. This principle has underpinned environmental planning for decades and cannot be cast aside. Amendments 6 to 10 and new clauses 26 and 29 aim to address the Office for Environmental Protection’s concerns and strengthen the overall improvement test for environmental delivery plans.”
“I completely concur. We appreciate the work done by my hon. Friend and others in the Bill Committee, and by tabling numerous amendments at this stage to help the Government improve the Bill. Why do we need more stringent regulations and demands on developers, rather than less? Why do we need evidence and mitigations approved prior to development, rather than a “pay later for something, somewhere” nature restoration fund? It is because we have the evidence to show what happens without much-needed investment in enforcement capacity for local councils. On the Environmental Audit Committee, we heard the conclusions of the Lost Nature report: for nearly 6,000 homes across 42 developments, only half of the environmental pledges were kept.”
“Successive Governments have failed to deliver a fair energy transition for workers and communities. We have seen the devastating closure of the Grangemouth oil refinery, and now we are seeing uncertainty around the gas storage facility off the east coast. Just seven out of 87 offshore oil and gas companies are planning to invest anything in renewable energy by 2030, so the Government must be the ones in the driving seat to ensure that our North sea oil and gas workers do not meet the same fate. What discussions has the Minister had with the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero on new financial support to create recruitment and retention pathways for workers moving into the clean energy pathway?”
“That is why I am urging the Government and the Minister to reconsider the recommendations of the Women and Equalities Committee, to allow self-identification, remove the requirement of a gender dysphoria diagnosis from the Gender Recognition Act and reform the Act completely to enable self-identification, as the petition requests.”
“They are modernising, but in the UK we continue to ask trans people to navigate a legal process that is, according to the Government’s own consultation, dehumanising, overly bureaucratic and prohibitively expensive. We continue to ask trans people to prove that they are ill in order to access the legal right to live as their authentic selves. That contradiction is not only outdated, but harmful. Trans people such as Yannifer are not asking for special treatment; they are asking for respect, safety and recognition. I would like Yannifer to know that she is heard, and that we see, value and respect her.”
“So she lives in limbo, denied the basic dignity of legal recognition. There are huge questions over the need for this medical diagnosis. As the Women and Equalities Committee concluded, the diagnosis is outdated. The World Health Organisation has moved from “gender dysphoria” to “gender incongruence”, under a non-mental health classification. The UK is now out of step with international best practice. Ireland, Denmark, New Zealand and Argentina have all reported positive administrative and public health outcomes from policies based on legal gender self-declaration. As we have heard today, these nations are not collapsing and the sky has not fallen in.”
“She has been able to form the most special of relationships, but she is not able to marry her partner in her own acquired gender without a gender recognition certificate. More dangerously, she has had to turn to private treatment, at huge personal cost, because her GP still refuses to prescribe the hormones that she needs, citing loopholes that discredit private diagnoses. We have heard today about the mental health impact of this process, and the stress and uncertainty that it causes are not hypothetical. The situation in which Yannifer finds herself is dangerous. She has told me that to procure medication informally is just to survive, because the alternative of not being able to live in her acquired gender and to change and transition, as she puts it, would be “practically suicide-inducing”.”
“She happily changed her gender in her passport and driving licence back in 2023, after a visit to her GP—self-declaration in practice. I remember the joy of that day, and her joy and pride in what she said was her most life-affirming moment. But that was short-lived, because she then realised that that did not entitle her to the next steps towards a gender recognition certificate, nor to hormone treatment. For that, she needs a diagnosis of gender dysphoria from an NHS gender clinic. With the NHS in crisis and the reality of the current provision, Yannifer is now two years into what is likely to be at least a six-year wait—a cruel and unnecessary delay for a basic recognition of her identity.”
“As early as 2016, and again in a 2022 report, the Committee recommended a move to a more streamlined, de-medicalised process, recognising that being trans should never be treated as an illness. Yet that is exactly what the current process continues to do. The requirement to obtain a medical diagnosis of gender dysphoria from an NHS gender clinic doctor is not only dehumanising and daunting for those involved, but these days is practically almost impossible, and inaccessible. As other Members have done, I would like to bring into the debate the voice of trans people, particularly from my South Cambridgeshire constituency. Let me share the very human story of what it is like in practice—the story of a trans woman who embodies the struggle that the petition seeks to address. Yannifer is a trans woman, a close friend and a colleague of mine.”
“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Mundell. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for South Cotswolds (Dr Savage) for moving the motion and for her powerful speech. I also thank all the signatories to the petition. I want to add my voice to the calls for transgender people to be able to change their legal gender through self-identification and, in particular, without the need for recourse to a medical diagnosis of gender dysphoria. The petition reflects a long-standing call for dignity, simplicity and fairness in how we treat some of the most marginalised people in our society. We seem to be going backwards rather than forwards. The Women and Equalities Committee spent years scrutinising the Gender Recognition Act.”
“My hon. Friend is right to point out that compassion and fairness for those who are terminally ill are rightly at the heart of the Bill. Does he agree with my constituents who would like to see it extended to those terminally ill with motor neurone disease and neurodegenerative disorders, to give them choice and dignity, too, by extending the eligibility period? [ Interruption. ]”